Spain has become the first country to connect a 100% green hydrogen engine to its national electricity grid. The breakthrough was achieved by Finnish energy company Wärtsilä in the town of Bermeo, marking a major milestone for clean energy.

Unlike conventional power plants that burn natural gas, this engine runs entirely on pure hydrogen. It generates electricity without producing carbon dioxide, with water as its primary byproduct.

The project serves as a real-world demonstration that large-scale hydrogen engines can reliably supply electricity and operate safely while connected to a national power grid.

Wärtsilä says the technology could provide backup electricity whenever wind and solar power generation drops. It may also help stabilize renewable energy grids and meet the growing electricity demand from AI data centers.

Although green hydrogen is still costly to produce, store, and transport, this successful trial is an important step toward cleaner large-scale power generation. It highlights hydrogen’s potential to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and support the transition to low-carbon electricity.

Sources:
Siemens Energy
Reuters
EU Commission

Britain’s biggest community solar project has been forced to shut for the duration of its first summer by the government’s energy system operator to avoid overloading the local grid with renewable energy.

The north Devon solar farm was ordered to shut weeks before record high temperatures across Europe led to power supply warnings, due to concerns that the large amount of rooftop solar in the area could destabilise the power grid by triggering a “thermal overload”.

“We are not clear on what triggered the shutdown, which came on the Friday before the half-term heatwave with no notice,” the board told the Guardian. “However, it does seem the network operators knew there was a looming problem.”

The National Energy System Operator (Neso) is understood to have ordered National Grid to shut a vital “super grid transformer” over the summer to prevent the rooftop solar in the area from driving the transmission network’s voltage beyond its safety limits.

The surge in rooftop solar power is particularly difficult to manage during the summer when long, sunny days lead to more generation than a local grid might need. Specialist equipment can help to manage potential voltage issues, but these upgrades have not yet taken place in the area near the Derril Water solar park.

A spokesperson for National Grid confirmed that it had curtailed some generation in the local area to keep the system secure after Neso called for its super-grid transformer to be turned off. “We’re now working with Neso to help provide solutions to these temporary constraints,” the spokesperson added.

WHEN EUROPEAN regulators were tweaking the continent’s wholesale electricity markets some years ago, they added a price floor to short-circuit trading snafus. At minus €500 ($580) per megawatt-hour (MWh), it was more of a price basement. It was set so low in order to be triggered only in exceptional circumstances. May 1st, when bright sunshine and strong winds met low demand for electricity from Europeans enjoying a public holiday, may have seemed pretty ordinary. Yet the wholesale electricity price in Germany reached minus €499 per MWh. If this translated into retail prices, you would pocket €50 for charging your electric car.